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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now, we turn to New Jersey with Nancy Solomon, who hosted last night's monthly edition of Ask Governor Murphy, the call-in show that airs once a month here on WNYC and public radio stations in Philadelphia and elsewhere in Jersey. Nancy joins us the next morning each month, typically for excerpts and analysis and your calls. This month, Nancy and Governor Murphy covered legislation that makes public records harder to obtain. Other topics: a plan to fund NJ Transit, the Senate race to replace Bob Menendez, assuming that he is not going to succeed in getting reelected with his scandal, plus related concerns about nepotism and the governor.

Four years since the outbreak of the COVID pandemic, Nancy and Governor Murphy also discussed the newly released assessment of the state's pandemic response. We'll play some clips, we'll take calls, we'll talk to Nancy, New Jersey listeners, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Call or text. Hi, Nancy. Thanks as always for joining us after working the night shift.

Nancy Solomon: Hey, Brian, thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: The governor commissioned a report to assess New Jersey's handling of the COVID pandemic some four years since the state's first recorded case, and you discussed that report with him last night. A report like this, Murphy says, helps the state learn from its mistakes and do better in the future. Here's just a nine-second clip on that.

Governor Murphy: When you lose 35, 36,000 people, there's no way in hell that you could say that you didn't make mistakes or you didn't learn from this.

Brian Lehrer: Nancy, what were the takeaways from this report?

Nancy Solomon: Well, I think the main one is that the state just wasn't prepared. That there was a plan for a health crisis that had been written in 2015, and nobody in state government seemed to know about it. The other big criticism was that kids were kept out of school for too long as the pandemic sort of came under control, that it went on for too long. And that the state didn't pay enough attention to long-term care facilities, which we had a real crisis with long-term care and veterans homes, both which have a lot of older people in them and people who are sick, and those were the most vulnerable populations to COVID. New Jersey had, I believe the highest death rate and number of deaths from long-term care facilities in the country, and so that was a major problem.

Brian Lehrer: Murphy broke a bit of news with you last night about one significant step the state will take to act on the recommendations of this report. Let's listen to 30 seconds on that.

Governor Murphy: We're going to stand up a task force co-chaired by the Commissioner of the Department of Health and by the Colonel of the State Police, respectively, Kaitlan Baston and Pat Callahan. Just as Judy and Pat co-chaired the COVID committee early on, it'll be represented across government, and it will likely stand until my last day in office because it's going to take us a while to chop through all these recommendations. Some of them are more straightforward than others.

Brian Lehrer: A new task force. Want to explain, Nancy? It's not like they think the same pandemic is going to come and they're going to have the same choice about closing schools for X months, or what is the task force actually hoping to accomplish?

Nancy Solomon: Well, I think there are 33 recommendations that the report makes, and the idea is that they're going to go through each one and come up with a plan of how to meet those recommendations. I mean, the governor, he's very proud of the fact that he hired independent investigators to come in and evaluate his performance. He made the point last night that no other state has done that, nor has the federal government done it. I think this is his attempt at saying, "Look, it's not just a report that we're going to let collect dust. We're going to look at it and examine all the different kinds of policy prescriptions that could come out of the recommendations."

One of the more interesting things he said, I thought, last night was that he thinks that there should be a transition committee for the next governor. Incoming governors have these big transition committees that look at really all aspects of government and make recommendations, but he wants to add a committee that would look at pandemic and health crisis planning, and preparing the next administration, which you kind of can see his thinking. He didn't say this, but if they had a plan that was developed during the Christie administration and the incoming administration didn't know about the plan, you want to connect the dots a little better there.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Well, let's move on. The New Jersey State Legislature I see has fast-tracked a bill that would restrict, some say gut, the state's open public records law, known by the acronym OPRA. Not Winfrey, but that's the open records law. This came up a bit last night. I see this being covered extensively in New Jersey-based political media, I think having to do with being able to look at police behavior records. Tell us about this.

Nancy Solomon: Right. This is just a critical way that any kind of watchdog group or a journalist is able to get information from the government, and just to track any kinds of decision-making that they're doing. The legislature is really trying to do this overhaul of it and fast-track it, so it's going at a high speed through the committee process to a full vote. What it would do most critically is it would take away the ability of any private individual or organization to-- upon suing the government when you're turned down for records that the law allows, to then get attorney's fees. It's called fee shifting. You might remember, Brian, in-- I think it was 2014 or 2015, WNYC sued the Christie administration for documents that they had not provided our reporter Matt Katz--

Brian Lehrer: I forgot about that.

Nancy Solomon: -- and we won, and we were able to get our attorneys paid through the-- we had pro bono attorneys, and they were able to get paid. This is a critical way that the law gets enforced, is through the penalty of not just having to turn over the documents if you lose the case, but having to pay the lawyers. It also would allow government agencies to label documents "draft", and hence not have to release them. It would require the redaction of email addresses, which kind of, I'm not sure-- I think it's important that we see who is sending these emails, so the redactions are problematic, but it also raises the question of whether this is really about making the process work better. The legislators argue that public records custodians are inundated with requests and have to spend so much time preparing them. Well, this would add a huge layer of work to go through and redact email addresses, so it's pretty problematic.

Brian Lehrer: So, what's your suspicion here? I mean, they're talking about workload as some just kind of bureaucratic reason for doing this, but you're obviously suspicious that the legislature is trying to hide something or trying to hide some things that may happen in the future. What's on your mind even hypothetically?

Nancy Solomon: Well, I think in New Jersey, we have a very high number of legislators who have-- it's not a full-time job, and they have their professions and their day jobs, and a lot of those day jobs involve work with the government, government contracts. It's a huge source of income for many, many legislators. That's one suspicion I have, is that they don't want there to be transparency about who's getting government contracts to do what. Transparency is always something that the public and reporters and activists want, and people in power would really prefer you to stay out of it. I think it's a very raw power grab, let's just put it that way.

Brian Lehrer: Next topic, funding NJ Transit, and a looming 15% fare hike. Here's the governor on that.

Governor Murphy: That is-- that hole, we finally have found the so-called dedicated funding source that's come up on, I would say, countless times in this program.

Nancy Solomon: Yes, it has.

Brian Lehrer: Right.

Nancy Solomon: A lot of people are happy about that decision or that proposal, but there's still a ton of folks who are unhappy about the 15% fare hike. Oh, we've run out of time. 15 seconds.

Governor Murphy: I'm so sorry. Listen, I would prefer to have zero, but 15% versus 38% in the last administration in this NJ Transit is a much stronger operation.

Brian Lehrer: As the closing theme played under the governor's last answer, were there other proposals under consideration, Nancy? I mean, 15% is a steep fare hike. New York City Transit's last fare hike was about 4.5%, just by way of comparison.

Nancy Solomon: Yes. The governor defends the 15% by saying that there hasn't been a fare hike in the six years he's been governor, which is true. He says 15% is not so bad because there hasn't been one in so long, but there are a lot of people who are upset about it. I'd say the key other proposal is that advocates had pushed really hard for the governor to keep what's called the business tax surcharge. When Murphy got into office, he levied a tax against corporations that make more than a million dollars in profits, so in addition to their corporate tax they paid, the big ones would pay more. He promised that that would help get out of a fiscal hole, and then he would sunset it, meaning he would cancel it, and he did. At the beginning of this year, it ended, and he's gotten a lot of criticism about that.

It brought in about a billion dollars a year in revenue, and advocates called for him to keep the tax and put that into New Jersey Transit. He did back down and he compromised, and now he has proposed a corporate business tax surcharge that would be on businesses that make more than $10 million a year. That would bring in roughly $800,000, so that's a pretty decent compromise that he's bringing in a good chunk of that money back, but he says it's not enough, and it has to still be paired with a fare hike.

Brian Lehrer: You also questioned the governor last night on his wife Tammy Murphy's Senate run versus Congressman Andy Kim. That primary is coming up, it's in June. You asked Murphy if he thought it's a fair charge that he's using his power in a political way to help his wife.

Governor Murphy: Absolutely not. Absolutely-- I'd be saying that too if I were running against Tammy. There's no evidence whatsoever, and nor will there ever be. Part of the reality is, and I want to dispel a couple of myths here--

Brian Lehrer: We'll play a longer clip along these lines in a second, but that clip by itself, Nancy, says a lot. Governor Murphy is aware that there are certain optics here at very least, right?

Nancy Solomon: Yes, absolutely, and they're getting questioned about it constantly. There's been a huge backlash among grassroots activists around the state. Some elected political officials are also being critical, so there's been real problems for them that they didn't, I don't think, anticipate, but he didn't really answer-- the question was, are you using your power? Yes, he acknowledged that there is that narrative out there, but then he tried to disagree with it.

Brian Lehrer: Young in Monmouth County is calling about this very thing. Young, you're on WNYC with Nancy Solomon.

Young: Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my call. I just may want to make two points, because I tried calling last night and no one was picking up the phone. First point is that I really applaud what Nancy is doing, really giving Jersey a voice on WNYC. So I really applaud her [unintelligible 00:14:05] courage, because I think that every time she has this Wednesday night asking governor questions, she'll always be very critical and ask the question clearly, and especially last night. Thank you Nancy for holding our elected officials to account.

The second point I want to make is that I'm very disappointed by the governor's response, especially this time. He was very defensive and didn't even try to address the question, and I'm very disappointed by the New Jersey Dem-- how the system, the Democratic Party system to have all these party chairs that-- he didn't like the name of like party bosses, but that's what they do. When you look at all these counties, when they have these anonymous votes, his wife lost, but anytime they have to have the party chairs to push their members to vote publicly with their name so that his wife wins. Also, the lack of transparency. Nancy was right, that all these people, they endorsed his wife because they know they need the governor. Those are the two points I want to make. Thank you so much.

Brian Lehrer: Young, thank you very much. With that as prelude, here's a longer clip from last night about Tammy Murphy's candidacy. This runs about a minute and 20.

Governor Murphy: UFCW, United Commercial and Food Workers, and the painters, two completely different types of unions. Service on the one hand, you're going to get them in grocery stores, cannabis-- By the way, they've organized cannabis. Painters, you're going to get on part of the building trades. Love them both. Very diverse, very different, they're both for Tammy, and there are many others: carpenters, electricians, firefighters, up and down the line. So, with all due respect, this notion that one guy has got the grassroots and she doesn't is just not factually held up. Here we go.

Nancy Solomon: But couldn't two things be true at the same time? I didn't ask you, is she qualified, or has she done good work, or do people support her--

Governor Murphy: No, I wasn't saying that.

Nancy Solomon: --I said, are you using your power and position as governor?

Governor Murphy: Absolutely not.

Nancy Solomon: Okay, but all of those endorsements, how do you--

Governor Murphy: They know her, that was the point. I wasn't trying to [crosstalk]--

Nancy Solomon: Yes, but how do you separate out? Because everyone wants your favor, everyone wants to curry favor. You think the unions don't want to curry your favor? Of course, they do. They need you. The county chairs need you, the Congress people need you. Everybody needs the governor on their side in this state.

Governor Murphy: Listen, it so diminishes her God-given abilities and her excellence.

Brian Lehrer: It's a tough position, right?

Nancy Solomon: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: He wants to endorse her, he clearly believes in her, what he called God-given abilities and her excellence. I don't even think you were questioning that, and yet there's this other whole layer of influence that comes into it.

Nancy Solomon: I don't think he's doing himself any favors in that response in the sense that he needs to acknowledge, "Yes, I have a lot of power. And yes, people want my attention, they want me to agree with them on whatever issue, they want the support of the state government and the state budget." He needs to acknowledge that that is a perception and a reality, and then say, "But I've been--" If this is the argument he wants to make, "But I've tried really hard to separate myself and to not make calls and to not twist arms, and we've played it fair." He could answer the question, is what I'm saying, but he's not answering the question.

And Young's point-- thank you, Young, for the nice things you had to say about me, but also it's so amazing to me to hear regular folks all over the state, and I'm getting this a lot, I'm hearing from a lot of people who now kind of see the role that the county parties, the machines play in this, and the fact that the ballot is not fair. When you add another layer to what was already a problematic process, you add a very, very powerful governor, the most powerful governor in the country constitutionally, when you add that into the mix, it causes a lot of problems. The Murphys, to this point, they have not really grappled with and acknowledged some of the dynamics in this race.

Brian Lehrer: Let's get one more caller in here, and it's Mendez in Jersey City. You're on WNYC. Hello, Mendez.

Mendez: Hi, good morning, and great work here, Nancy. I worked for Governor Murphy, and I've met his wife, of course, and I am an active person in Jersey City working on campaigns. But I will not be voting for Tammy, with all due respect, as much as I love the governor, because just like your guest was saying, it appears to be a conflict of interest. I don't think-- let's say if she were to get elected to be the senator under her husband who's the governor of the state, it seems like this marriage would not work. For me, it doesn't work well. It seems a little bit unfair to Kim, really. I think that's where I stand.

Nancy Solomon: Yes, I've been hearing this from a lot of people, and I think it is a hurdle that they are struggling to get over. The perception that it's not a fair fight, and also just-- I think a lot of people, as you just said, Mendez, are just plain old offended, especially in the wake of the Menendez indictment for corruption and bribery. They're just plain old offended by the idea that, of the three statewide elected positions in the state, New Jersey has fewer than most states, that two out of those three would be a married couple. It's not resonating with people the idea, that she'd be a historic first woman elected to the Senate from New Jersey, that she's hardworking and smart. I mean, all of those things are true, but they can't get over this hurdle that so many people are offended by this.

Brian Lehrer: And it is resonating, based on our tiny unscientific sample here of people calling in. I mean, just in this segment when we talked about NJ Transit at the beginning of the segment, people didn't start jamming the phones. When we talked about COVID at the beginning of the segment and New Jersey's response, even COVID, people didn't start jamming the phones. When we talked about the Open Records Act, it didn't happen. As soon as we brought up Tammy Murphy, line one, line two, line three, line four, so just an unscientific indication that this is resonating in a negative way with people out there.

Nancy Solomon: Well, and I have one more data point if you will let me add, which is that the conventions at the county level for the endorsement of the candidate that gets advantageous placement on the ballot, at those county conventions when a secret ballot vote is held, and when the party boss is not as powerful like the biggest county machines are, you see an overwhelming support for Andy Kim. But when it's the party bosses or people who are invested in the machine, they have jobs, government jobs that they've been able to get, they want to hang onto them, then you see a dampening of the vote for Andy Kim. Andy Kim says, regardless of the county line and the placement on the ballot, he's going to go out and win over voters between now and June because there is so much unhappiness with this particular aspect of her candidacy.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, and these aren't even people who don't like her and don't like the governor, but for all the reasons we've been discussing. All right, let's end on a lighter note, because I see the governor announced the lineup for a summer music festival, the North To Shore Music Festival. Oh, boy. When and where?

Nancy Solomon: Yes, so this is the second annual, and it's meant to be like the South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, which I really-- I don't know. I hate to say to be snarky, but it just doesn't seem as cool as South by Southwest, but nonetheless, it's this summer. It's in Newark and Atlantic City, and Asbury Park on different days. Some of the headliners are Matchbox Twenty, The B-52s, Kevin Hart, Gary Clark Jr., Lake Street Dive, Frankie Valli. Stephen Colbert is interviewing a surprise guest, the governor said, but he claims he doesn't know who it is, so that could be fun. Last year was the first year, and it was a big tourism and economic development driver. They sold a ton of tickets and brought a lot of people to those three towns, so that's really the whole point of it.

Brian Lehrer: My producer just said in my ear, maybe Colbert's surprise guest will rhyme with Moosh Mingstein, so that's exciting. Sounds like a lot of good stuff coming to that in Jersey. And we'll leave it there with our Nancy Solomon, who hosts Ask Governor Murphy every month on the station, and comes on with us usually the next morning, like today, with clips and analysis, and to take your calls. Nancy, thanks as always.

Nancy Solomon: Thanks, Brian.

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